


Black & Blue

by anotetofollow



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Mild Gore, Mutual Pining, Pre-Relationship, Skyhold (Dragon Age), Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-02
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:01:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23955775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anotetofollow/pseuds/anotetofollow
Summary: Blackwall tries to keep his distance from the newly-titled Inquisitor after their arrival at Skyhold.
Relationships: Blackwall/Female Inquisitor, Blackwall/Female Lavellan
Comments: 4
Kudos: 39





	Black & Blue

**Author's Note:**

> I won't waste your time with my revelation  
> Hello my friend, I see you're back again  
> Hello mystery, don't bother to explain  
> How 'bout maybe, its all been in my head  
> Hey well I'm tired of this black and blue, black and blue ([x](https://open.spotify.com/track/7CXxnlx2IhHapOBZnaZNyO))

Things had been different since they arrived at Skyhold. During their months in Haven something had been growing between them, some tension without a name, building through letters and glances and snatched moments of conversation before their duties pulled them apart again. Then the town had been attacked, and in those few sickening hours where he had thought her lost Blackwall had finally come to realise what she meant to him.

During their long trek to Skyhold he had thought, fleetingly, stupidly, that more could come of it. Tanith remained near him while they trudged through the Frostbacks, still recovering from her injuries and the shock of all she had seen. They spoke rarely. He simply walked beside her during the days, made his bed in sight of hers at night. For some reason his presence seemed to calm her, and so there he stayed. An ever-faithful dog at her heel.

But then they had arrived at last, and when Cassandra led her up the castle steps Blackwall knew that this change was insurmountable. Tanith Lavellan might have been a part of his life; the Inquisitor could not be. There was too much responsibility on her shoulders for his past to threaten, too great a reputation to risk losing. He went where he was asked, fought when it was demanded of him, but outside of these duties he stayed away. There were no more letters, no more stolen glances. It was better that way, he told himself. It was as things should be.

He had chosen the stable yard partly to maintain that distance. Blackwall did not feel comfortable in the keep with the powdered toadies, nor in the tavern with the constant burble of cheer and chatter. Instead he spent his days helping Dennett with the horses, where it was quiet, and where, he thought, there would be fewer opportunities for his path to cross with hers. And so it came as a dull shock the first time he saw her in the yard, standing among the tents and stretchers, deep in conversation with Adan. It shouldn’t have surprised him, he realised quickly— she was a healer by trade, after all. He attempted to go about his business as usual, half-hearted and poorly, the knowledge of her presence burning dark in his peripheral vision.

Tanith was there often after that, when her duties for the Inquisition did not take them elsewhere. Sometimes he would catch sight of her while leading the horses out to water, see her kneeling in the dirt with her staff over some injured soldier. For the rest of the day he would be clumsy, dull-witted, and Dennett would stare at him like he was thick in the head. Perhaps he was, to allow her to affect him so. Whatever had existed between them was tenuous enough that it bordered on imaginary. There were times when he wondered whether, in fact, he had fabricated the whole thing, allowed himself to believe in an affection that was not there. Perhaps if he had the letters it would be different. But they were bundled up inside a straw mattress when Corypheus had descended on Haven, and were now ash with the rest of it.

Within a few weeks he had grown almost used to it. He adapted to her working across the courtyard from him, kept his eyes low, concentrated only on the task in hand. One morning he was so absorbed in mending tack that he didn’t even see Tanith approach, only realising she was there when she rapped her knuckles against the stable doorframe.

“We need water,” she said. “In camp.”

“What?” Blackwall was so thrown by her sudden appearance that the single word was all he could manage.

Tanith looked at him like he was mad. “Water,” she repeated slowly. “For the camp. Help me fetch it.” Was she angry at him? There was an edge to her voice Blackwall had never heard before.

“Of course,” he said.

“Alright,” she said. “Hurry up.”

He followed her to the pump at the edge of the courtyard, carried bucket after bucket over to the healer’s encampment. Tanith placed her hands in each vessel as it arrived, her magic heating the water until it steamed, then handed it over to the other healers as they washed and dressed the wounds of the recently injured.

“That’s enough,” Tanith said after several trips. “Thank you.” She spoke without looking at him, the dismissal obvious in her words.

If he had been clinging to any lingering hope, that was enough to shatter it. Tanith was treating him like a stranger— something, he supposed, he deserved. He returned to the stable feeling sullen and disconsolate, picked up the half-mended tack and attempted to work until he grew tired of pricking his fingers with the needle.

Given the disdain with which she had spoken to him that morning, Blackwall was not expecting to see Tanith again any time soon. And so he was surprised when, the following day, she knocked at the door again.

“There’s a few stretchers need lifting up to the keep,” she said. “Come on.”

What else was there to do but follow her?

It became a pattern. Once every few days she would arrive at his door, tap her knuckles against the frame, give him some new task to complete. Always an order, never a favour. All the while she would be sitting in the encampment with the Inquisition’s wounded, passing her hands over lacerated flesh, or sitting with a mortar in her lap as she mixed up some poultice. It was strange seeing her there, doing the rough work that was a consequence of her crusade. Blackwall was used to her armoured, or as armoured as a mage could be, riding out to their next mission, calling down lightning at the edge of the battlefield. Here she dressed lightly, feet bare, hands and knees and ankles splattered with mud and gore. It was easy to forget, sometimes, that she was the one who led them, that when she was not down here in the muck she was up dining with the nobles. It struck Blackwall that perhaps this was where she felt more comfortable. After all, she had been raised in the wilderness, healing the hunters of her clan. Maybe he was not the only one who felt more at home away from the grandeur of Skyhold’s halls.

And so this became their new routine. She would call on him and he would act as her beast of burden, fetching, carrying, bringing supplies when she asked. They rarely spoke beyond that first instruction, and when they did Tanith was always short with him. It became an act of self-flagellation, to blindly follow her orders and never attempt to reignite their former intimacy. Occasionally he would catch himself staring at her, watching as she pushed her hair out of her eyes as she worked, stretched her shoulders, frowned at some new injury, and his chest would ache with wanting her. He found himself missing those early days in Haven, when she would perch on the edge of the stable wall as they talked, eyes bright and laughing, when he might return to his room and find a note in her looping hand. Her smile had been a perennial thing then, seemingly vanished now.

Blackwall was helping to put up a new tent in the encampment one afternoon, trying to ignore Tanith where she worked a few yards away from him, when a patrol of Inquisition soldiers came clattering through the gatehouse. They called out for the healers almost as soon as they arrived, two of the men carrying a third down the steps to the camp. The soldier was in an awful state, the makeshift bandage across his stomach already black with dried blood, his eyes wide behind his helmet.

“What happened?” Tanith said as they laid him down.

“Fucking apostates happened,” one of the soliders spat, then remembered who he was speaking to. “Sorry, your Worship.”

She shook her head, dismissing the offence. “How long ago?”

“Six hours. Cut us off at the pass. I don’t know what they did to him, ma’am, it all happened so quickly.”

Tanith knelt down beside the injured soldier and pulled off his helmet. Blackwall, who had been watching from a distance, felt his blood run cold when he saw the lad. He was little more than a boy still, the skin of his face smooth and deathly pale. Another healer crouched next to him and began peeling away the sodden bandages. The young man screamed, clawing at the earth as the fabric was ripped away from his gut. It was a horrendous wound, jagged, spilling viscera. The healer shook her head as it was revealed, her mouth a tight line.

She and Tanith spent half an hour attempting to do what they could for the boy, but it was clear that their efforts were in vain. He was bleeding profusely, dripping with sweat, crying out over and over again for his mother. Blackwall had seen wounds like this before, and had never seen a man recover from them. Sooner or later his injuries would kill him.

“All we can do now is make him comfortable,” Blackwall overheard the healer say. “I’ll fetch something to ease his passing.”

She set off towards the keep, leaving Tanith alone with the young soldier. He had stopped screaming now, and she held his hand as he drew in long, rattling breaths. A minute later the air caught in his throat with an awful gargle, and then the boy began to convulse violently. Tanith scrambled to grip his arms, pinning him down to prevent him from injuring himself, the corded muscles of her neck straining as she fought to keep him still. Blackwall dropped the pole he had been carrying and ran over to the stretcher, holding the boy’s shoulders as they spasmed. The seizure lasted a long time, and once it had passed the soldier’s breathing was shallow, a thin line of blood running from the corner of his mouth.

“Thank you,” Tanith said, her voice quiet.

“It won’t be long now,” Blackwall said. “You did all you could for him.”

She didn’t reply to that, just reached down to push the boy’s damp hair back from his forehead. Blackwall left them alone. His presence would not help matters. He returned to his work, feeling sick and useless.

A few minutes later he passed through the camp again on his way to fetch canvas from the stocks. He saw Tanith near the fire, sitting with the soldier’s back propped up against her stomach. His chest was still rising, though weakly now, his wound already staining the fresh bandages. Blackwall paused to watch them for a moment, knowing he shouldn’t but unable to look away. Tanith was singing quietly, her voice breathy and off-key, words in an unfamiliar language, a lullaby melody. She cradled the soldier close to her, her cheek resting against the top of his head. As Blackwall watched the boy drew one slow, hoarse breath, and finally fell still. For a moment Tanith just sat there, unmoving. Then she reached to the soldier’s bandaged stomach, slipped her thumb under the gauze. When she pulled it out again it was bright with blood. She dragged it over her forehead, leaving a red mark across her vallaslin. Blackwall had the sense that he had just seen something that he was not supposed to, something that was not for him. He left as quietly as he was able.

There was a second knock on his door that day. It was hours later, and the sun had long sunk below the mountains. Blackwall had been sitting by the fire, his mind elsewhere, when he heard a quiet tapping against the door frame. He looked up, tried vainly to master his surprise at seeing her there.

“Hi,” Tanith said. She lifted the bottle of brandy she was carrying. “I need a drink.”

“I would have thought you’d be more comfortable in the tavern.” He regretted the words as soon as they were out of his mouth, hating how bitter they sounded.

“Not tonight,” she said, walking over to sit a few feet away from him. “Everything’s very… merry, in there. I don’t want merry right now.”

“And so you come to me.”

Tanith smiled. “And so I come to you. Can you scrounge up something to drink from?”

Blackwall spent several minutes searching the stables for two moderately clean cups, wiped the dust off one with a clean rag before handing it to her. She poured herself a decent measure of brandy before passing him the bottle. For a while they drank in silence, staring into the shifting flames. Blackwall watched her out of the corner of his eye, the firelight dancing across her features. The smear of blood across her forehead was still there, dried now.

He hesitated before speaking, unsure whether he should ask the question. “I saw you with that lad earlier.” Blackwall mimed drawing his thumb over his brow. “What was that for?”

Tanith sighed. “In the clan, when one of our hunters makes a kill, they mark themselves with the animal’s blood. It honours their sacrifice.”

“You didn’t kill that boy.”

“Didn’t I?” She looked up at him, her eyes dark. “He was wearing my colours. My sigil. He died on my orders.”

“He was a soldier, Tanith.”

“I know.” For a moment she was quiet, rolling the cup between her fingers. “You hold rank in the Wardens. You must have done this before. Sent men to their deaths.”

Blackwall felt himself go cold. She could not have known how close her words cut. “Yes,” he said. “I have.”

“How do you cope with it?”

“When I find out I’ll tell you.”

Tanith made a noise that wasn’t quite a laugh, knocked back a long gulp of her brandy. Blackwall looked around the room for something that might help illustrate the point that he wanted to make. His eyes settled on a jar full of nails resting on his workbench, and he lifted it down.

“The way I see it,” he says. “We’re at war. There are always casualties in war.” He tipped a few nails out into the palm of his hand, placed them on the floor between them. “It can be hard to see past that sometimes. But think about the people you brought here from Haven.” Again he placed a pile of nails onto the dirt, larger this time. “The mages you saved at Redcliffe.” More again. “The refugees who won’t starve to death now you’ve secured the Hinterlands.” More again. “I promise you, Tanith, for every life lost here there’s ten more saved.”

“I keep trying to tell myself that,” she said. “It hasn’t helped yet.”

“It usually doesn’t. But it’s a reason to keep fighting.”

She nodded slowly, then picked one nail out of the first pile. Carefully she pushed it through the collar of her shirt, placed her fingers on the metal. It turned from red to orange to white, her magic heating the iron, softening the sharp edges. When it had cooled to black again she turned to him. “I think I need to remember the ones we’ve lost.”

“Good,” he said. “Someone should.” Tanith looked different now, he thought. There was a weariness to her that had not been there in Haven, and new shadows had bloomed underneath her eyes. He wondered then whether staying away from her had been the right thing to do.

After that night she came to see him more often. He still had reservations about their spending time together, but Blackwall could no sooner turn her away from his door than breathe underwater. They worked together in the camp most days they were at Skyhold, and occasionally she didn’t make it back to the keep until nightfall. Over the following weeks they slowly rekindled the embers of their friendship, talking quietly by the fire, working with the healers, sometimes doing nothing more than sitting in silence after a particularly challenging day. It was a sweet sort of agony, being this close to her again. In Haven her companionship had been a balm to him, her frequent presence worth getting through the day for. Now he was constantly aware of all the things that had drawn him to her in the first place; her determination, her candour, the undercurrent of humour that ran beneath it all.

It would have been easier to cope with were she not so tactile. This was not a privilege reserved for him, he knew. He had seen her resting her arm across Varric’s shoulders in the tavern, clapping Bull on the arm after a battle, sitting across from Josephine with the ambassador’s hands clasped in hers. Tanith had even explained it once, how the taboo against casual touching was a human quirk. She told him that, back in the clan, no one would think twice about embracing a friend in public, or sleeping alongside them in winter, or leaning together as they talked. Still, he struggled every time she squeezed his hand, fought the urge to draw back when she brushed woodshavings from his shirt. It was too hard, to have her touch him and know no more could come of it, when all he wanted in the world was to have her in his arms, in his bed. Every time her fingers met his skin it burned.

One night it was warm enough that they eschewed the fire altogether, instead laying in the grass of the courtyard. The moon was almost full, spilling pale light across the Frostbacks. It was one of those clear evenings when the sky was a riot of stars. The two of them had got to talking about the constellations, comparing their names.

“What about that one?” Tanith traced the points in the air with her fingertip. “With the dip in the middle.”

Blackwall searched his memory. “Tenebrium. I think it’s supposed to be an owl.”

“An owl?” she scoffed. “It’s a Halla. Look at the horns.”

“I can see it. That one there, see the diamond? Judex, the sword.”

“Ah! That one’s the same. Except we call it _mi_. The blade.”

“Who decides these things, anyway? Who looks up at the sky one day and goes ‘you know what, there’s a million stars up there, but those few look a bit like a tree’.”

“No idea,” Tanith laughed. “I once met a man who said he could tell fortunes that way. Told me that the position of the stars at the time you were born revealed your future.”

“One of your people?”

“No.” She rested her ankle against her knee. “One of yours, actually. I used to sneak away from the clan sometimes, when I was younger. Put a hood down to cover my vallaslin and just… watched.”

“You watched humans? That can’t have been interesting.”

“You’re as strange to us as the Dalish are to you. I found it very interesting,” she said, smiling. “I once ended up in this tavern near the Vimmark foothills. This man was telling fortunes in a corner, so I plucked up the courage and asked him for mine.”

“What did he say?”

Tanith laughed. “That I would run away from my alienage and join the Dalish.”

“Ha. Bloody charlatan.”

“To be fair to him, I did lie. I haven’t the faintest idea where I was born. Or when, for that matter. He was the strangest looking man. Longest hair I’ve ever seen, wore a patch over one eye.”

“Hang on a minute,” Blackwall frowned. “Did you say this was near the mountains?”

“That’s right.”

“This wasn’t the Trout, was it? On the crossroads between Ostwick and Markham?”

“Yes!” Tanith turned to face him. “Yes, I remember the sign. Do you know it?”

“Maker’s balls, I know the _man_.” Blackwall shook his head incredulously, hardly believing the coincidence. “Passed through there maybe twenty years ago now. I remember that old quack, peddling his fortunes.”

“Did you get one?”

“I did. He said I’d be drowning in riches by the time I was thirty. So clearly that’s gone well for me.”

She laughed at that, the sound cutting through the night like Chantry bells. “Our Keeper used to read palms. Said she could see your future in the lines.”

“That so?”

“It is.” Tanith rolled onto her stomach so she was lying beside him, caught his hand up in hers. She turned it over, cupping the back of it while she ran her fingertip along his palm. The light touch alone was enough to make his chest ache. “Hmm. Interesting.”

Blackwall swallowed, struggling to master himself. “What does it say?”

“That you’ll live till you’re a hundred,” Tanith said, tracing the lines on his skin. “Slay a thousand foes. That the bards will sing songs about you.”

“Really?”

“Of course not,” she chuckled. “It’s midnight. I can’t see a thing.”

But still she did not let go of his hand. She remained holding it in hers, stroking her fingers across his skin. Blackwall held his breath, wanting nothing more than to pull away, wanting nothing less. For a moment there was nothing but the moonlight and the soft huffing of the horses and her gentle touch. But then she lifted his knuckles to her lips and he snapped back to reality, got quickly to his feet.

“It’s late,” he said. “We should get some rest.”

“ _Fenedhis_ , Blackwall.” Tanith buried her face in her hands. “This, again?”

“My lady, I—”

“Don’t.” Her voice was sharp as she stood. “Creators, will you ever make your mind up? One minute it’s love notes and _my lady_ , the next you won’t even _look_ at me for months. What is it that you want, Blackwall? I’m tired of trying to figure it out.”

He struggled to meet her gaze, her eyes were burning into him so. “It’s not about what I want, Tanith. It’s about what’s right.”

“According to whose measure?” she asked.

“Any measure.”

“Not mine,” she said. “Look, if this is about your being a Warden—”

“It isn’t.”

“Well _what_ , then?” Tanith almost shouted. “If there’s a reason then _tell_ me.”

There was a wild second where he almost considered it. If she knew the truth she would walk away for good, and then he would no longer have to work to keep his distance. But then the fear settled on him again, the cowardice, and he shook his head. “It’s not that simple.”

“Fine,” she said. “Goodnight, Blackwall.”

He watched her walk away, still feeling the slow touch of her fingers on his palm.

She didn’t visit him once in the next month, and nor did she call on him for help in the camp. Once or twice he caught sight of her across the courtyard, but if she had seen him she gave no indication of it. Blackwall felt her absence like a wound. He had not meant to push her away so completely, only so far that she would put any romantic notions out of her head. The evenings stretched out longer with no prospect of her arrival. He had grown used to her filling the stable with her laughter, her warmth. It seemed empty without her, colder somehow.

There was a light rain falling the morning the the company returned from Verichel. Blackwall heard the commotion before he saw it, a great clamour of clashing armour and shouting voices. He went to investigate the sound, and what he found there was nothing short of a bloodbath.

The Inquisition had sent the company to Verichel to investigate rumours of Venatori activity, but they had been ambushed en route. Of the three hundred men who had left the keep less than half had returned, many of them mortally wounded. The camp was in chaos already as the healers and their attendants struggled to make space for the injured, calling for stretchers and mages and supplies from the apothecary. Tanith stood in the centre of it, eyes wide as she watched her soldiers carry their brothers in arms down the steps.

Blackwall didn’t need to be asked to help. He made his way up to the gatehouse to assist with the wounded, joined the groups of rank-and-file soldiers as they lined up to aid the healers. The rain was pelting down harder now, and by the time he returned to the camp the ground was awash in water, mud, blood.

The next few hours were a red blur. A hundred men screaming, bones being set, the grate of the saw. There were not enough healers to go around, and the injured soldiers lay bleeding in rows along the castle walls. Before long the supplies that they had on hand were sodden, and Blackwall was sent up to the keep for more. By the time he returned half a dozen more men had died. They were dropping like flies, one after the other, bloodstains blossoming like flowers on their shrouds.

Tanith knelt in the mud near the healer’s tent, passing her staff across torn flesh and broken bone. The rain likely obscured it to most, but Blackwall could see from the trembling of her shoulders that she was crying. Every time he crossed the camp on a supply run he turned to her, wanting to go to her, knowing he could not. After a few hours her energy must have been too drained for magic, for she began dressing wounds and applying poultices with the other healers, jaw hard as she threaded gut through a needle with shaking hands.

It was almost evening before the worst was over. Scores were dead, and many more might not survive the night. The healers moved around mechanically, their eyes blank, defeated. Haven aside, it was the greatest single loss since the Inquisition had been founded.

He found her at the edge of the courtyard, sitting with her back to the wall. Tanith stared out across the rows of the dead, her arms bloody to the elbow. She didn’t look up as he approached her. The rain had stopped by then, but her face was still wet with tears.

“Come on, Tan,” he said. “Get up.”

She followed him without question, allowed herself to be led to the stable and sat down by the fire. Blackwall put a kettle on to boil, found a bowl and clean rags. Through all of it Tanith didn’t say a word. She remained motionless, staring straight ahead, bloodstained arms held out in front of her. Once the water was steaming he filled the bowl, brought it over to the fire. Blackwall sat down in front of her and soaked the rags, then set about cleaning the gore from her skin. He moved slowly, methodically, rinsing and cleaning until the water was tinged with pink, refilling the bowl, starting again. He wiped the blood from her wrists, between her fingers, used his belt knife to carefully clean it from under her nails. Still Tanith said nothing. She sat limp as a ragdoll, chewing on her lip until it cracked. Blackwall could imagine what was going through her mind. Tanith would be taking every one of those deaths upon herself, letting the guilt saturate her flesh. He knew what that felt like. But he deserved to carry that blame, that loathing; she did not.

Once Tanith’s hands were clean Blackwall put the bowl and the rags to one side, sat looking at her for a moment. He searched for the right words, for something to say that might ease her pain, but found nothing. There were no platitudes that could help her right now. And, he realised, nor was it what she needed.

For the first time he thought about what it must be like for her, to be plucked from the warmth of her clan, her family, to be set down in this world where no one spoke her mother tongue. Blackwall kept his solitude close, gathered it around himself like a cloak against the cold. But Tanith was different. Until now all she had known was the intimacy of those she loved, a world where she could know another’s touch and not be afraid of it. How must it feel, to be suddenly denied that? To be deprived of life while surrounded by so much death?

When Blackwall put his arms around her Tanith let out a long, pained breath, as though she had been waiting for it. Immediately she wrapped herself around his neck, pulled him close, buried her face in his shoulder. She began to cry again, low, helpless sobs that left her shaking against him. He held her there, pushing down every impulse that told him not to, for once thinking only of what she needed. Tanith’s curls were damp against his cheek, her body warm where she curled against him. Unconsciously he stroked her back, her hair, hummed some half-remembered rhyme from his childhood as she grieved. They sat there like that for a long time. He could feel her heart beating against his chest, fast as a trapped animal. Blackwall swore to himself that he would not move until she was ready.

Eventually Tanith leaned back, wiping the tears from her eyes. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you.”

All he could do was nod. For months he had recoiled from her every touch, but suddenly he could not bear the thought of being parted from it.

“I don’t want to go back there.” Tanith’s voice was quiet. “I can’t face it.”

“It’s alright,” he said. “You don’t have to.”

They slept on his pallet in the hayloft that night. If she found his arrangements humble after the luxury of her quarters, she said nothing of it. She simply lay down beside him, tucked her back up against his chest, pulled his arm across her waist. Blackwall waited for the panic to come, the guilt, but for once it failed to materialise. It felt so normal, so _right_ to have her there. He could find no fear in her slow breathing, the warmth of her hand on his. Blackwall waited until Tanith was sleeping soundly before closing his eyes and settling against her.

He woke alone the next morning. For a moment he wondered whether he had dreamt it, but then his hand found the neatly folded scrap of paper on the pillow beside him. He recognised her script, opened it carefully.

_Thank you_ , it read. _I can’t tell you what this meant to me. Sorry for leaving so early. I needed to speak to Cullen about… well. You know what about. I miss our letters. Write back this time. Please._

It was not signed. It did not need to be. Blackwall folded the paper small, tucked it inside the mattress. The bed still smelled of her, like spring rain and cut grass. There was no resisting it now, he realised. No resisting her.

It had been hopeless to ever try.


End file.
